The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has launched a spacecraft to explore whether life exists on Europa, Jupiter’s moon. Europa is a planet where water beneath its surface is estimated to be able to survive on Earth.
According to Reuters on the 14th (local time), NASA launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:06 p.m. on the day with a Europa Clipper on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. It was originally scheduled to be launched on the 10th, but was postponed due to Hurricane Milton.
The Europa Clipper will fly about 2.9 billion kilometers and reach Jupiter by April 2030. It will collect detailed measurements by flying close to Europa about 50 times. It will scan the entire planet from different directions to an altitude of about 25 kilometers above the surface of Europa.
This is the first scientific exploration to closely observe Europa. Clipper’s goal is to check whether water actually exists under the ice covering the planet and whether it is an environment where life can migrate and live.
Until now, the scientific community has speculated that a huge sea exists under a layer of ice 15 to 25 kilometers thick below the surface of Europa. The estimated amount of seawater is half of all seawater on Earth. The depth of this sea is estimated to be 60 to 150 kilometers. There is also the possibility that life can live here. In order for life to live in the Europa sea, there must be organic matter, a compound containing water, energy, and carbon.
“Europa is the most promising environment for potential life in the solar system,” NASA Deputy Director Jim Free said in a briefing on Wednesday. “This mission is not to find real life.” According to NASA, the Clipper is the largest probe NASA has ever developed for planetary exploration. Large solar panels have been installed to collect sunlight and charge power from Jupiter, which is five times farther from the Earth’s sun.
The Clipper carried nine main payloads, including a high-resolution camera for generating the Europa map, an ice-transmitting radar that can analyze the presence or absence of groundwater, and a heat meter that can accurately identify the most recent point of water eruption. To protect these payloads from Jupiter’s strong radiation, a thick shield made of titanium and aluminum was made.
One of the main challenges of the Europa Clipper mission is to “create a spacecraft robust enough to withstand radiation from Jupiter and sensitive enough to collect the measurements needed to investigate Europa’s environment,” said Sandra Connelly, deputy director of NASA’s Science Mission.
Europa is the second largest moon in Jupiter. It was first discovered by Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei in 1610 and is also called the Galilay satellite.
EJ SONG
US ASIA JOURNAL
